Traits of dominant plant species drive normalized difference vegetation index in grasslands globally
Research output: Journal contributions › Journal articles › Research › peer-review
Authors
Aim: Theoretical, experimental and observational studies have shown that biodiversity–ecosystem functioning (BEF) relationships are influenced by functional community structure through two mutually non-exclusive mechanisms: (1) the dominance effect (which relates to the traits of the dominant species); and (2) the niche partitioning effect [which relates to functional diversity (FD)]. Although both mechanisms have been studied in plant communities and experiments at small spatial extents, it remains unclear whether evidence from small-extent case studies translates into a generalizable macroecological pattern. Here, we evaluate dominance and niche partitioning effects simultaneously in grassland systems world-wide. Location: Two thousand nine hundred and forty-one grassland plots globally. Time period: 2000–2014. Major taxa studied: Vascular plants. Methods: We obtained plot-based data on functional community structure from the global vegetation plot database “sPlot”, which combines species composition with plant trait data from the “TRY” database. We used data on the community-weighted mean (CWM) and FD for 18 ecologically relevant plant traits. As an indicator of primary productivity, we extracted the satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from MODIS. Using generalized additive models and deviation partitioning, we estimated the contributions of trait CWM and FD to the variation in annual maximum NDVI, while controlling for climatic variables and spatial structure. Results: Grassland communities dominated by relatively tall species with acquisitive traits had higher NDVI values, suggesting the prevalence of dominance effects for BEF relationships. We found no support for niche partitioning for the functional traits analysed, because NDVI remained unaffected by FD. Most of the predictive power of traits was shared by climatic predictors and spatial coordinates. This highlights the importance of community assembly processes for BEF relationships in natural communities. Main conclusions: Our analysis provides empirical evidence that plant functional community structure and global patterns in primary productivity are linked through the resource economics and size traits of the dominant species. This is an important test of the hypotheses underlying BEF relationships at the global scale.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Global Ecology and Biogeography |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Pages (from-to) | 695-706 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| ISSN | 1466-822X |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 01.05.2023 |
Bibliographical note
Funding Information:
sPlot has been initiated by sDiv, the Synthesis Centre of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle‐Jena‐Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation (FZT 118) and is now a platform of iDiv. We are grateful to thousands of vegetation scientists who sampled vegetation plots in the field or digitized them into regional, national or international databases. We appreciate the support of the German Research Foundation for funding sPlot as one of the iDiv research platforms (DFG FZT 118, 202548816). T.E., D.H. and F.M.S. were funded under this scheme. We thank Ludmilla Figueiredo and the iDiv Data and Code Unit for assistance with the curation and archiving of the dataset. The study was supported by the TRY initiative on plant traits ( http://www.try‐db.org ). T.E. was financially supported by the European Commission through the programme Erasmus Mundus Master Course, International Master in Applied Ecology (EMMC‐IMAE; FPA 532524‐1‐FR‐2012‐ERA MUNDUS‐EMMC). D.H. was supported by the Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement (CAPES). V.P. was supported by the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil (grants 307689/2014‐0 and 431193/2016‐9). C.V. was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant Project “ecophysiological and biophysical constraints on domestication in crop plants” (grant ERC‐StG‐2014‐639706‐CONSTRAINTS). G.E.O. was funded by CNPq grant 310345/2018‐9. J.A. was supported by research grants LTAUSA19137 (programme INTER‐EXCELLENCE, subprogramme INTER‐ACTION) provided by Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, 20‐05840Y of the Czech Science Foundation and long‐term research development project no. RVO 67985939 of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS). J.D. was supported by research grants MŠMT Inter‐Excellence (LTAUSA18007) and Czech Science Foundation (GA 21‐26883 S). J.P. was funded by the Spanish government grant PID2019‐110521GB‐I00, Catalan government grant SGR‐2017‐1005 and European Research Council grant ERC‐SyG‐2013‐610028. M.C. was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (project no. 19‐28491X). P.B.R. acknowledges National Science Foundation (NSF) Long‐Term Ecological Research (LTER) grants DEB‐1234162 and DEB‐1831944, Long‐Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) grants DEB‐1242531 and DEB‐1753859, and Biological Integration Institutes grant NSF‐DBI‐2021898. T.C. was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GA17‐07378 S). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Funding Information:
sPlot has been initiated by sDiv, the Synthesis Centre of the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, funded by the German Research Foundation (FZT 118) and is now a platform of iDiv. We are grateful to thousands of vegetation scientists who sampled vegetation plots in the field or digitized them into regional, national or international databases. We appreciate the support of the German Research Foundation for funding sPlot as one of the iDiv research platforms (DFG FZT 118, 202548816). T.E., D.H. and F.M.S. were funded under this scheme. We thank Ludmilla Figueiredo and the iDiv Data and Code Unit for assistance with the curation and archiving of the dataset. The study was supported by the TRY initiative on plant traits (http://www.try-db.org). T.E. was financially supported by the European Commission through the programme Erasmus Mundus Master Course, International Master in Applied Ecology (EMMC-IMAE; FPA 532524-1-FR-2012-ERA MUNDUS-EMMC). D.H. was supported by the Coordination of Superior Level Staff Improvement (CAPES). V.P. was supported by the National Council of Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), Brazil (grants 307689/2014-0 and 431193/2016-9). C.V. was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant Project “ecophysiological and biophysical constraints on domestication in crop plants” (grant ERC-StG-2014-639706-CONSTRAINTS). G.E.O. was funded by CNPq grant 310345/2018-9. J.A. was supported by research grants LTAUSA19137 (programme INTER-EXCELLENCE, subprogramme INTER-ACTION) provided by Czech Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports, 20-05840Y of the Czech Science Foundation and long-term research development project no. RVO 67985939 of the Czech Academy of Sciences (CAS). J.D. was supported by research grants MŠMT Inter-Excellence (LTAUSA18007) and Czech Science Foundation (GA 21-26883 S). J.P. was funded by the Spanish government grant PID2019-110521GB-I00, Catalan government grant SGR-2017-1005 and European Research Council grant ERC-SyG-2013-610028. M.C. was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (project no. 19-28491X). P.B.R. acknowledges National Science Foundation (NSF) Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) grants DEB-1234162 and DEB-1831944, Long-Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) grants DEB-1242531 and DEB-1753859, and Biological Integration Institutes grant NSF-DBI-2021898. T.C. was funded by the Czech Science Foundation (GA17-07378 S). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Global Ecology and Biogeography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
- biodiversity, biodiversity–ecosystem functioning, community-weighted mean, ecosystem functioning, functional diversity, sPlot, traits, vegetation
- Biology
- Ecosystems Research